


your name is etched into my every step

by taliko



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 17:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taliko/pseuds/taliko
Summary: the woman he loves, or the woman he's always loved?





	1. who knows me as you do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> memory has a funny way of catching up with us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Shaewyn Surana](http://i.imgur.com/s9AP7Uz.jpg) formerly of clan Taerith  
> [Ashalora Lavellan](http://i.imgur.com/y9fOTPE.png)  
> 

Cullen was late.

He knew he looked an absolute mess; hair tousled far past rakish and well into unkempt, pants sloppily tucked into boots, scarlet mantle unevenly wrapped across his chest. He had overslept – quite out of character – and nothing he could do would make it look like anything else.

It had been one of those nights, the ones when the lyrium shakes hit too hard and his only focus was on the little wooden box on his desk, the sapphire relief held within. The hypnotic rhythm of refining the lyrium sand, the slide of a needle into his skin, or the shot-no-chaser emergency doses in the little steel vials…had the order to stop been kind? It had felt like love only this morning – but the nights. Especially the nights alone.

During the day he was busy, during the day he could turn his focus to other things and if the ache _theitchtheurge_ ever got to be too much (became a problem), Cassandra would be there to decide for him. He trusted her, she trusted herself enough to take him under her piercing gaze ( _fitting for a Seeker_ , he thought wryly). Most nights he had the option of leaving his tower, of using the time spent climbing the stairs in the western wing to shake off the threat of losing control. She understood him without understanding the organization that did this to him; she didn’t judge, just held him close to her heart on the worst nights...his Anchor. But she had been away, only returning sometime late last night, and he had been left to fend for himself.

He must have exhausted himself into sleep sometime just before the sun rose, because one second there was the pull in his veins and the next, a messenger was shaking him awake with an official message from Josie about a visitor. _Someone the Sister says you might like to see, sir_.

Soldiers parted on the ramparts with a salute and a “Commander” as he rushed past, one of the longer-serving veterans reading the hurry on him and holding the door to the library chancel open as he passed. Solas was kind enough to pretend not to notice when he stopped in the rotunda to fix his clothes, tucking everything back into place. Solas always put Cullen a little ill at ease; the elf was far too calm and unreadable for him. It always felt like he was hiding something very important behind that cool exterior, but Ashalora liked him and Cullen would trust his Herald (his love) with his life. Cullen ran a hand through his hair quickly before pushing into the Great Hall with a heave and a sigh. Orlesian nobles swept out of his way as he made his way to Josie’s office, their fan-hushed titters of curiosity thankfully cut off by the closing of the heavy wooden door.

They were all there, all the women in his life; Cassandra, Leliana, Ashalora, Josephine herself. They were joined by another figure, another woman, standing with her back to him; the fireplace shadows on the tips of her ears marked her as an elf, the metal rings in her lobes as one raised at least for a time in an alienage. Tall for an elf, she towered over Ashalora, nearly level with Leliana. None of them turned at his entrance, instead continuing their casual conversation as if he did not exist. Cullen hung back respectfully, as he had been trained both a man and a military leader should do. They were the brains of this operation after all; he was just the sword arm. There was something familiar about the new woman’s soft chuckle, though.

Josie was the first to address him.

“Ah! Commander Rutherford. How good of you to join us.”

Cullen nodded and smiled slightly at the introduction.

“Ambassador, ladies, please pardon my lateness, I was not expecting to be needed.”

Leliana smiled _(darkly?)_  and turned to him as she rested her hand on the newcomer’s shoulder.

“It is no trouble, truly. Our guest’s appearance surprised us all.”

She turned back to the woman with a knowing, affectionate smile as the stranger placed her hand over the spymaster’s.

"And I am sorry for any trouble it may have caused."

Cullen froze. He knew that voice.

* * *

 _Her back arches away from the wall with a restrained moan, long fingers grasping at his curls, other fist held fast against her mouth in an attempt to muffle the sounds that threatened escape. He hates that, he wants to hear her, but privacy doesn’t exist here in the Tower and they didn’t have much time until he was noted missing._ Thank the Maker she’s tall, _he thinks._ Makes this easier, faster.

* * *

"Cullen? Are you alright?"

Concern on Leliana's face, confusion mixed with surprise on Josie's. He can't see Ashalora, prays she's not looking at him.

She's turning. Maker, she's turning to look at him. The entire world has centered on the shine of firelight on her dark auburn braids and golden earrings and _Maker she's going to look at him._

"Cullen?"

He hasn't seen her since....

Kinloch. The broken Circle.

Since he’d begged her to kill him, since he’d all but held a sword to her neck for the second time and demanded she let him kill what remained of her friends right after he’d revealed he loved her with venom in his voice and hatred in his heart, spitting the words _a mage, of all things_ right to her face. She'd held her composure then, even had the decency to look a little surprised (if only for the benefit of her companions) while she offered nothing but help and a resolution. He should have trusted her to know more about the events in the Harrowing Chamber than he could ever understand. He hadn’t.

He'd been cruel.

_"The Maker knows my sin, and I'll pray that he will forgive me"_

A pause. Hurt? Embarrassed?

_"Why does it cause you so much pain?"_

_"You are a mage and I, a Templar. It is my duty to oppose you and all you are."_

She'd been right in the end, he can see that now. She came from a world where life was sacred and was stolen to a world where her very existence was nearly a crime. She'd found solace where she could and believed that peace was possible for others, too. She'd saved them when anyone else would have let them all die.

_"You must stay strong."_

_"And to think I once thought we were too hard on you."_

That had been the flinch, the moment when he first started to wonder if she was real after all.

* * *

 _She’s got one leg hooked up over his hip, robes hitched up as high as possible, the ridges on what armor he still has on definitely leaving scratches, welts, marks of ownership (of_ him _) on her thigh. She’s moved her fisted hand to join the other in his hair, she’s got her tongue in his mouth, tasting, claiming, owning. He reaches down to pull her leg a little higher, to get a little closer; she drops a hand between them and whimpers into his mouth, tightening around him in a way that threatens to pull him over. He leans harder into the elbow he has pressed against the wall next to her head, burying his face in the crook of her neck as he picks up the pace. His rhythm is almost unforgiving, forcing her fingers to try to keep up._

* * *

“Hello Cullen. It’s been a while.”

Her voice was soft, betraying no hint that she might be surprised at his presence. Leliana’s hand still rested on her shoulder, covered by her own. Leliana’s eyes hadn’t left her face, poised in a truly dangerous way. Cullen swallowed thickly around the acid lump in his throat.

“Shaewyn.” He can't look at her. He stares at one of her earrings instead. “Good to see you again.”

* * *

_There’s a split second, a hitch in her breath and her whole body tightens with a silent moan. He can’t stop it now, can’t stop himself, and he finds his release seconds after her. They stay like that for some minutes as he catches his breath from the skin of her shoulder, tasting the lyrium in her sweat and getting lost in her scent. Her hand spreads slowly open over the back of his neck, smoothing his hair back into place, peppering small kisses on the side of his face as her pulse slows against his lips. She's so warm all over and he doesn't want to move, doesn't want to have to hide, doesn't want to ever leave her again...but they both know that's impossible._

* * *

She gave a small smile that didn't meet her eyes and nodded slightly in his direction.

“Hopefully this meeting will go better than the last.”

_Words? What are words?_

“Y...yes, I-I’ve no doubt it will.”

They were all staring at him.

_Escape!_

“Uh, well, l-ladies, if you have no further need of me, I……I’m sure I can be of more use elsewhere.”

He turned on his heel and swept (ran) out of Josie’s office, closing the door behind him with a little too much force than was entirely necessary. The burn in his chest dimmed but did not go out, his breath going slightly shallow and muscles tightening in a horrifyingly familiar way. That anger, the rage and fury from his time in the cage rose to his throat, leaving an acid taste in his mouth and a ringing in his ears. It was like the very sight of her had brought all those feelings back to the surface, as if the face of the woman he'd almost had to lose had brought him back to that place where he almost lost himself completely.

Maker, he was in trouble now.


	2. through blinding mist i climb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ok so this is mostly exposition and not my best work, sorry about that...chapter 3 is already better, I promise!

He was avoiding her.

He’d been trying to skirt that particular truth since she arrived a week ago, but when he caught himself finding more and more reasons to take odd paths to familiar locations at increasingly irregular times, it was time to face facts. He wasn’t even sure _why_ he was avoiding her; yes Kinloch had been a disaster, but it was a decade ago! They were both different people now - he’d been right at the heart of the mage rebellion in Kirkwall, she was the _Hero of Ferelden_ , for Andraste’s sake. Neither of them knew each other at all anymore.

As if they ever really had at all in the first place.

* * *

  _He loved those angular marks on her face, sweeping across cheekbones and forehead. They were at once a crown and a mask and he often found himself tracing the red lines through the eye slit in his helmet when he couldn't trace them with his fingers. His favorite was the lines on her chin, stretching and changing ever-so-slightly when she talked...or smiled._

Falon'Din _, she'd said one night when he hadn’t asked. Every clan’s vallaslin was unique, but a trained eye could see which Creator was in the marks. And hers were to Falon’Din, he of death and fortune._

_“Your people would mark a child for a god of death?”_

_She’d laughed at that; she laughed at everyone’s misconceptions about the Dalish. She hadn’t grown up in the tower, but had been taken in as a prisoner after using magic to scare some Templars away from her hunting camp and the captain was feeling kind that day._

_“Not marked_ for _, but_ in the name of _. Falon’Din walks with his twin Dirthamen in the places where the People cannot. They would teach the souls in Uthenera the knowledge of the Fade, and some would even return with it in service of the People. This mark means he will be a guide through my journeys and I will learn secrets in the whispers.”_

_He was fascinated. She’d laughed at that, too._

* * *

He glanced over at the growing stack of reports needing his order and signature, inwardly sighing when he saw it had reached such a height that it had starting to list precariously to one side. There never seemed to be enough time in the day to get anything done, and there was always more requiring his attention every minute, it felt. And yet, here he sat, addressing none of it.

Cullen sighed, leaning forward to rest his head in his hands. Why was he so hung up on…this? They’d been, what, seventeen? Eighteen? They were both into their thirties now, there was no reason for him to spend so much time thinking about a woman he hadn’t seen in a decade. A woman he’d barely even known in all the fleeting moments they’d had.

“It’s likely the shock of seeing her again.”

His head snapped up in surprise at the lilting voice; he stood at once in respect for his current company not a moment later.

“Sister Nightingale. I did not expect you.”

Leliana gave him one of her secret smiles, motioning for him to sit again. He remained standing.

“I do not want to take too much of your time, Commander,” she said with a lighting-fast glance at the stacks of paperwork littering his desk. “I only came to see how you were faring in light of our current circumstances.”

Cullen blinked. Leliana didn’t.

“Ahem. Well,” he coughed, hoping to stall for a few precious seconds, “as far as I can tell, nothing has changed. I’m still holed up in here with orders and requisitions up to my eyeballs, as usual. I have nothing concerning you to report.” _Please believe me_.

“Holed up or haven’t left?” _Damn._

Had she blinked yet?

He forced a chuckle, an attempt to break the rising tides of tension in the room; an attempt to hide.

“Leliana, I assure you that I am as occupied with the internal affairs of this Inquisition as I always have been. It seems you’re so keen on finding shadows, you’ve started to create ones to entertain yourself.”

The Inquisition’s spymaster knew better than to take the bait of such an obvious jab, but she couldn’t quite keep the light in her eyes from changing ever-so-slightly, like something had twisted in her stomach. Cullen worried he’d overstepped and might find a warning carved into his chest by morning. After a tense moment, Leliana folded her arms and leaned back onto her heels.

“That is good to hear, Commander. I was worried I was going to have to keep a closer eye on you.”

With that, she turned and slipped out the door leading back towards the keep proper.

Cullen fell back into his chair, leaning an elbow on his desk and dropping his forehead to his hand. He could feel the first threads of a headache beginning to claw their way up his neck and towards his eyes, sense the first of the tremors beginning to threaten the hand set loosely in his lap. He found himself slowly shifting to look at where the little box had formerly set on the shelf in the corner, felt the thirst-like pull in his throat for the simultaneous pain relief and rush of power those little vials could bring with the slow push of  the plunger into the needle.

He turned further, turning his head to look towards the slit of a window, running his eyes slowly over the crenellations on the gatehouse. He was seeking something hypnotic, something to effectively rock his mind to sleep until he could find a suitable distraction from the shakes. What he didn’t expect was to actually fall asleep.

* * *

  _She’d looked him right in the eye-slit. That’s what got him the first time._

_He was shadowing a higher-level Templar Knight, a man with a decade of service under his belt and a hard-boiled hatred for magekind. Cullen, all of 16 years old, growing into himself but still a little gangly under the armor, had never felt so unprepared and exposed in his life._

_She’d caught him off-guard during a spare moment - he didn’t even know where his supervisor had headed, just that he was gone and Cullen could breathe for a spare second. He’d leaned into a darker corner off the library, trying for all the world to act like he’d been there for ages._

_“You’re not fooling anyone.”_

_He snapped around, helmet swinging slightly around his head. She was standing in the library door, standing just off to the side enough to let others pass, shuffling through a stack of papers in her hands. Looking at him._

_He glanced around, unsure if he was allowed to talk to her or not._

_“Well now you’re_ really _not fooling anyone.”_

_He’d blanked. She’d smiled._

_And then she was gone, off down the hall with a swish of robes._

* * *

 


	3. you have walked beside me

She found him, eventually; he had always known she would, and would in her own time. What he’d forgotten was that ‘on her own time’ meant ‘whenever her prey was completely off-guard’. Which, this particular day, meant while supervising training exercises for the veteran infantrymen.

“You’re not fooling me, you know.”

_ Maker, no. _

“I’ve no idea what you could be talking about.”

She crossed her arms, leaned into her hip, chin dropped and single eyebrow raised. He couldn’t see her, standing behind him as she was, but he didn’t need to. The sudden realization that he could still predict her -  _ well, parts of her  _ \- even now sent a chill through him. Fear? Surprise? Something else? He couldn’t say.

“And now you’re  _ really  _ not fooling me.”

He sighed, shifting his weight slightly as he continued to supervise the recruits training in the courtyard.

“Well that’s because I’m not trying to fool anyone, least of all you, of anything.”

She huffed a short chuckle at that. Something new rose in his chest at the sound - something dark, something harsh, something angry. Something that sound had never elicited before.

* * *

 

_ Footsteps approaching, running. New faces, this time. An older woman in robes (didn’t he know her?), a small redheaded woman, a tall warrior, and... _

_ “This trick again? I know what you are. It won't work. I will stay strong.” _

_ “Cullen!” A pause. “Don't you recognize me?” _

_ Rising bile, the cold, metallic taste in his mouth. _

_ “Only too well... how far they must have delved into my thoughts…” _

_ The older one spoke. _

_ “The boy is exhausted. And this cage... I've never seen anything like it.” She turned to him, a kindly grandmother looking to aid. “Rest easy... help is here.” _

_ How many times had he heard that? A vision sent to “help” him, sent to save him, sent to let him free. Another vision “cut down” the moment it looked like he was going to escape, another friend’s face to stare at him with blank eyes through the hazy purple of his prison. _

_ “Enough visions! If anything in you is human... kill me now and stop this game!” _

_ The redhead - an Orlesian - spoke. _

_ “He's delirious. He's been tortured... and has probably been denied food and water. I can tell. Here, I have a skin of--” _

_ Rage. _

_ “Don't touch me! Stay away!” He recoiled away from the prison wall a few steps, arms outstretched to defend against the strangers. He dropped to his knees, head in hands. Maybe blocking out the images before him would make them go away, make Uldred see that is little games wouldn’t work... _

_ “Sifting through my thoughts...tempting me with the one thing I always wanted but could never have…” _

_ He looked up, almost involuntarily. She wasn’t real, wasn’t  _ her _ , but her needed to see that face with its crown-mask framing the bluest eyes he’d love to drown in. _

_ “Using my shame against me...my ill advised infatuation with her...a mage, of all things. I am so tired of these cruel jokes...these tricks...these…” _

_ She’d flinched. Had the visions ever flinched? _

_ “This is no trick. We're here to help.” _

* * *

 

He’d been barely 19 and thought he was in love; just her voice echoing through the corridors had been enough for him back then, a glance across an atrium threatened his very composure every time. He’d been barely 20 when Uldred murdered his friends, put him in that cage and tried to break him just for fun. He’d been through so much pain in his 31 years, learned to control his fear and anger in the face of anything the world could pit against him; yet right now the very thought that she might continue speaking at all threatened a demon he hadn’t felt in years.

“Did you come all the way down here just to bother me?” Sharp. Did she hear it? Why did her presence  _ infuriate  _ him so much?

She didn’t even take breath. “ _ Am _ I bothering you?”

_ So like Leliana. I wonder who rubbed off on the other more? _

“Well I am occupied-”

“Yes, yes, I know. ‘With official matters of the Inquisition’. So formal, little Templar.”

He tensed at that.

“I’m not a Templar. Not anymore.”

She huffed very quietly, just once, but enough to remove any doubt about her sneering derision of him.

“Sometimes a ‘once’ is an ‘always’. But  _ no _ , you’re too friendly with mages to  _ really _ be a Templar, right?” There was a mocking, sarcastic edge to the question, a sharp arrow-jab right through the excuses and armor he’d built around himself since Kirkwall. 

_ Was she right? _

She took a few steps towards him. He still didn’t turn around, just listened as her robe whispered softly through the grass, stopping a spare few paces behind his shoulder.

“Of course I am.”

His head jerked involuntarily towards his shoulder  _ towards her _ in a match-strike flash of fury before he managed to regain control of himself. 

“There’s that anger. Always knew you had it in you - there were so many times I could just…”

She paused, almost as if searching for the right words. Didn’t matter - he knew what she would say before it left her lips, but that anticipation did nothing to dull the sting.

“... _ feel _ it.”

That little hint of breathlessness was purposeful, he knew. Shaewyn Surana was a born predator - not even years in a cage could beat the hunt from her blood. She was watching him, he knew; playing with him in all the ways she’d always been able to.

And it enraged him. Who was she to come back out of the blue and play with him like this? Who was  _ she _ to assume anything about  _ him _ , about  _ anyone _ ? His grip tightened on the hilt of his broadsword and he shifted his balance in an attempt to look more relaxed as she pulled even with him, just far enough away to not rouse suspicion.

Her voice had gone dangerous when she next spoke.

“So my little Templar’s got a  _ type _ .” Her derision dripped from the word. “I wonder, is it the illusion of power he likes more, or the helplessness?”

She turned her head a little towards him, eyes still on the training soldiers, arms still crossed over her chest. Cullen’s chest contracted tighter, his whole posture pulling inwards, chin dropped to his chest, jaw twitching, his stance a stark contrast to Surana’s easy nonchalance beside him.

_ How  _ dare  _ she act like some kind of...of  _ **_hero!_ ** _ As if she’s untouchable, legendary by just  _ **_standing there!_ **

His grip on his sword tightened, every muscle in his arm straining to pull it from its sheath and drive her back, back to the gates of Skyhold, back into the wilderness she’d simply walked out of. She stood, impassive, completely aware of his internal struggle and yet completely unbothered by it. She threaded her arms behind her back, settling into an easy stance as she continued to observe the training soldiers. A few gave small bows her way in deference, to which she responded with gentle smiles and little nods. 

“You there!” Cullen barked suddenly. He didn’t have to look to see her raise an eyebrow and look at him quizzically.

“There’s a shield in your hand, block with it!”

Shaewyn gave a small incredulous chuckle beside him. He didn’t look at her.

“ _ Well.  _ Good to see you coming out of out of your  _ cage _ , Commander.”

* * *

 

_ She laughed at many of the other mage’s notions of themselves and magic. Her training as a First had meant she had entered the Circle with more than the basic skills required for Harrowing, and there was talk among the upper echelons that she was nearing readiness for the test. The idea amused her to no end - what was the point? Her people had gone without Harrowings for generations and they never became abominations - must be their training. _

_ “Getting a little close to that one, aren’t you boy?” _


	4. cry out to false gods and find silence

Cullen was laying in his bed in the gate tower, staring up at the sky through the hole in the ceiling. The stars hung above him, flickering in and out as the mountain clouds passed across their little lights. He could trace out parts of Eluvia, the Sacrifice, a bowed young woman with her head in the sky. Across the gap rose Equinor, the Stallion, rearing like a proper warhorse, daring any to cross his path. She’d said it was supposed to be a halla, Ghilan’nain etched forever into the sky.

_That’s what humans do_ , she’d said. _You take what isn’t yours and tell yourself that it always has been._

He rolled to the side, curling around himself.

* * *

  _"Do I scare you?”_

_He turned to look at her, brow knitted in a mixture of confusion and surprise. He was standing with his feet in the waters of Lake Calenhad, concealed under the broken bit of bridge extending off the eastern side of the tower’s island. This was the farthest they could go from the Tower itself without her phylactery alarm going off, so it would have to do._

_She was seated against a stone support, knees pulled to her chest, hair a mess, robe just loosely pulled around her shoulders, eyes locked on him. There was light in them he hadn’t seen before - he was used to the softly-cutting shimmer of affectionate mockery and bright gleam of laughter, the spotlight-like intensity when she was deep in her work and making headway. This look had the shine of a challenge dimmed by...worry? Apprehension?_

_Fear?_

_He took a moment before answering._

_“Always.”_

_The light in her eyes didn’t change, but her jaw shifted almost imperceptibly, teeth pressed firmly together to stem the possibility of betraying more emotion._

_“It’s why I love you.”_

_Her face_ did _change at that, tears visibly rising as she dropped her chin to look away from him._

_“Cullen, please. Don’t.”_

_“What? Don’t_ what _?” He took a step out of the water towards her, his voice rising just enough to make her flinch back against the stone and wrap her robe more closely around herself._

_“Don’t say that. Don’t mean it.”_

* * *

Cullen was sitting at the chessboard, still set from a game that went incomplete the night before, staring at the queen in front of him as if in the hope she’d spring to life and tell him all the answers he needed.

“I have to say, white suits you.”

He jumped at that, turning in his seat enough to see Josephine approach and lower herself delicately into the seat across from him.

“Really? Wouldn’t have expected that.”

Josephine flashed him one of her little smiles, warm despite the trained reservation.

“Well, you are in a much better place now, yes? You are no longer using lyrium, Ashalora has been home for an uncommon several weeks in a row, there have been no major signs of trouble requiring Inquisition involvement. You almost have time to get lazy, Commander!”

He attempted to smile - the result was probably far more pained than he would have liked.

* * *

_“What are you saying, ‘don’t mean it’”?_

_She stood abruptly, gathering herself and fixing her hair into something resembling a controlled bun. The basket of herbs used as her pretense for leaving at all that evening was quickly righted and thrown over her arm before she straightened and turned back to him._

_“Exactly that.” There was anger rising in her voice now. “This is impossible, Cullen. I’m a prisoner of the Circle and_ you _are my_ jailer!”

_He moved towards her, too quickly, something he realized when she shifted back and turned away from him. He slowed his approach, reaching gently out to her as if approaching a terrified animal. She half-heartedly attempted to shove his hand away, but he pushed through her feeble defense to take her crowned face in his hands and gently kiss her forehead before pulling her to his chest. He knew they couldn’t leave it like this but also that they had no more time. This was their lot, piecing together a semblance of a normal life, episodes of peace slotted between imprisonment and duty. He pressed his face to her hair, breathing her in. It was the only pieces of her he could ever take with him._

_“We should go back.”_

_She paused._

_“To what?”_

* * *

His attempt to answer was cut off, however, by the very loud, sudden arrival of an absolute _monster_ of a Mabari holding shoe in its mouth and its very small pursuer.

“Feynris! Give it back!”

The mabari gave a huff that was almost a laugh and took off, rounding Cullen before bounding towards the stairs to the battlements. The child - a little girl, Cullen could see now - skirted neatly around both present adults as if they were no more than extensions of the scenery and sprinted after the animal, shouting obscenities in Common and a few in what sounded like Elvish.

Throughout the whole episode, Josephine hadn’t budged.

“Though I am surprised you haven’t used any of your spare time to meet little Vela.”

Cullen blinked, turning back to her in surprise.

“Rowan Velahari.”

He blinked again.

“Surana.”

A beat.

“S-Surana?”

At that, Josephine leaned forward, whispering across the board at him despite the emptiness of the courtyard. Orlesian habits dying hard, he guessed.

“Well, one could argue for ‘Theirin’, but don’t tell the Ferelden nobles that.”

He shifted backwards at that.

_Theirin?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whole lotta flashback, I know, but I'm stretching game canon and lore a little bit to make my slightly-altered Origin work.

**Author's Note:**

> work and chapter titles are all from the Chant of Light, in case there was any wonder


End file.
